This text explores the development of polytheism with Archaic cultures to monotheism and eventually a more linear conception of time and transcendence. The text essentially, and very basically maps the progression of material conditions and how they shape the spirituality of a culture. The Archaic Iron Age maintains a sacred sense of cyclical time and the Axial breaks free into a historical sense that is linear. The future becomes open rather than an endless reproduction of the past. This sets the stage for the paradigmatic conflict between the indigenous Americans and the Europeans.

A concept I thought that stood out was the oscillations of cultures between a mind/body singularity and a mind/body binary that we now experience today. Interestingly, as the Hebrews develop a sense of sin and guilt their God becomes more kind and benevolent. As responsibility moves more inward into the self, the burden of punishment for motivation is lifted from the shoulders of God.

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Chapter 10 The Axial Iron Age: The Triumph of the Sky Gods
600 – 400 BCE
DEFINE operational cognition
monism |ˈmänˌizəm; ˈmōˌnizəm| a theory or doctrine that denies the existence of a distinction or duality in some sphere, such as that between matter and mind, or God and the world. the doctrine that only one supreme being exists. Compare with pluralism .
Material condition defines spirituality and approach to reality.
As Hebrews develop a sense of sin and guilt their God becomes more kind and benevolent. As responsibility moves more inward into the self, the burden of punishment for motivation is lifted off of the shoulders of God.
Archaic Iron Age maintains a sacred sense of cyclical time and the Axial breaks free into a historical sense that is linear. Future open than reproduction of the past.

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P268 Axial Iron Age experiences the democratization of life.
Invention of Money, property, the alphabet, political democracy
P269 In absence of writing, mythology enabled the transmission of important information across generations.
Hatab (1992) The Oral Mythic world is preobjective and preseubjective no separate nature or private self.
P270 What you see is what you get, no separation between appearance and reality.
Writing frees the individual from group ritual as a mechanism for reinforcing information. Thinking acquires introspection and observation.
With emergence of philosophy and religion, nature became divided between subjective and objective.
Ther is a fundamental flaw in the way things appear. Transcendence or hyperabstraction
P271 MONOTHEISM as the binary between good and evil, PreAxial Age myth is fundamentally pluralistic and understood as complex.
Apparently greater celestial activity, but eventually abated. Metorites etc
Secularization decline in magic and increase in religion
Mythic-magic is qualatavie, natural value versus quantitative, commerce value.
P272 Weakening of kinship in society.
The Axial Iron Age does not bring the complete demythologization of society for religion and philosophy have filled the void of the inexplicable and become mystic in their own regard by occupying that space.
mystic |ˈmistik| a person who seeks by contemplation and self-surrender to obtain unity with or absorption into the Deity or the absolute, or who believes in the spiritual apprehension of truths that are beyond the intellect.
The Arts then begin to represent the mystic.
The emergence of great thinkers, sages and prophets. The movement towards individualist thinking. DEFINE operational cognition
P275 Material development correlates with the emergence of sacred beliefs.
Proximity of the Hebrews, Greeks, Egyptians and Persians made for a cross fertilization of notions of monotheism.
MUMFORD (1956) Archaic Iron Age the new individual of the warrior and counterpart the hero. Axial Iron Age the new individual is the priest or wandering scholar.
P276 The sage is less impulsive, not driven by triumph, believes in an afterlife, lives in the mind heart consciousness rather thant he physical now of the body.
Yahweh transitions to a monolithic power amongst the hebrews with the middle and late prophets in the sixth century BCE
P277 The movement from plurality to unity, with the Hebrews and not completely with the Greeks.
In the Archaic period, the hero has no inner morality. The gods decide right and wrong and the hero complies.
Internal states were understood as originating and ending in sources outside the individual mind.
P278 Stone and Bronze Age, Interpersonal and local morality that are supported by the collectivist self. Axial universalist morality and the individualist self.
No concept of sin and guilt, decisions were decided by the gods externally. The God was one who exacted punishment.
As Hebrews develop a sense of sin and guilt their God becomes more kind and benevolent. As responsibility moves more inward into the self, the burden of punishment for motivation is lifted off of the shoulders of God.
Archaic and Axial Greek conception of passion that originated from the outside and possessed them.
Fifth Cent Greeks passed into a concept of a dichotomy between the inner psyche and the physical body. The inner psyche was trapped within the body and it was the demands of the physical that were the source of impurity and sin. HATAB (puritan psychology). Possible correlation between the frugality of the Protestants.
P279 More democratic, universal approach to individuals within the society and other cultures in the Axial versus the Archaic.
All souls had access to the afterlife versus only a select few in the archaic.
Archaic Iron Age maintains a sacred sense of cyclical time and the Axial breaks free into a historical sense that is linear. The future is open rather than a reproduction of the past.
Practice of the ultimate God as represented by images is abandoned and is reprehensible under idolatry.
P292 transition from horticulture to agriculture, division of mental and physical labor. Innovation, surplus, wealth, hierarchy.
Separation of mind and body, of upper from lower labor class. Writing enhances abstraction, cultivates introspection and distance.